Thunderbird seat reserve in Haneda?

konnichiwa,

later this month, we plan to travel to Osaka from Tokyo with Hokuriku Arch Pass.
i would like to ask, is it possible to reserve Hokuriku Shinkansen AND JR Thunderbird seats at once in Haneda's Travel Service Center ?
or should we reserve JR Thunderbird separately, later in Tsuruga ? as it is under JR-West.

on the return side (Osaka --> Tokyo), i assume it should be possible doing so in Shin-Osaka Station.
or is it not ?

i've searched the net, in here included, and there's no specific info about this, other than a certain Uji-san saying that "Thunderbird reservation might be able to be done at a station"

so, is there anyone here with such experience willing to share ?

good morning

Uji-san is like a guru here so he is right :)

in summary, it is technically possible to make reservation for shinkansen & limited express at haneda JRE Travel Service Centre

HOWEVER given how busy the haneda JRE Travel Service Centre is in recent years, they usually would only make reservation for the same day travel (and if you are lucky) the next day also. so unless you are planning to travel from tokyo to osaka on the date of flight arrival..

alternatively, you can make the reservation at the JR ticket offices in any major JR stations including tokyo, osaka, shin-osaka, kyoto for both shinkansen & limited express

if you are keen, you can also make the reservation at designated ticket vending machines after the JR pass exchange. for details please inquire at the haneda JRE Travel Service Centre

have a wonderful trip~

JR West places detailed requirements on reservations and pass/ticket pickup for many of its passes, making it impossible to use some of them without first stopping at a station in JR West territory. However, the Hokuriku Arch pass is not an exclusive JR West product. You can go to a JR East ticket office or Travel Service Center to make reservations for any segments within the validity zone. This is stated clearly on JR West's page for the pass (if you scroll far enough down the page and plow through the huge amount of other information...).
https://www.westjr.co.jp/global/en/ticket/hokuriku-arch-pass/

JR East also has a page on this pass:
https://www.jreast.co.jp/multi/en/pass/hokurikuarch.html

You do not have to wait until you get to Osaka to make reservations for returning to Tokyo. If you know which trains you want to use, you can make all the reservations at the same time in JR East territory, if you want to. It helps to have all the details (departure and arrival stations, date, time, and ideally train name and number) written up neatly. This will save a lot of time.

As suggested above, you should not attempt to do all of this at Haneda. Unless you plan to hop on the Hokuriku Shinkansen first thing the next morning, you should go to a ticket office or Travel Service Center after you get to Tokyo. If you do plan to leave early the next day, they will probably issue the tickets for Tokyo to Osaka at Haneda, although you might have to wait in a long line... But they would not simply issue you a ticket to Tsuruga and expect you to book the JR West segment after that.

You can also make reservations at certain ticketing machines, and depending on how you bought your passes, you may be able to reserve seats online, but if you have never done any of this before it might be easier just to go to a ticket office or service center. Even with advance reservations you have to pick up your passes and tickets at a station somewhere anyway.

On second thought, if you just tell the JR ticket agent you want to use the pass to go from Tokyo to Osaka, and the date and approximate departure time, they will put you on suitable trains (hokuriku shinkansen plus thunderbird), so you don't have to figure out the exact details. Same thing for your return.

So with the Hokuriku Arch Pass you are also returning to Tokyo via Kanazawa (otherwise the pass is not good value).

good morning,

@Anastasia :
Thank you very much, ma'am. We did take into consideration about how busy Haneda's TSC is, that's why we planned to book our return trip from Shin-Osaka later. And yes, we plan to travel to Osaka on the same date of arrival, Sunday Oct 6th. We should land at around 08.50 JST, so if everything goes nicely, we can get to Osaka at around 16.00 JST.

@Kim :
Thank you very much for your explanation and suggestion, sir/ma'am. Definitely will try that "second thought" ! We can't do online reservations because we acquire our Pass from travel agent, thus the need for offline reservation... and i was, unnecessarily, worried we can't reserve Thunderbird at JRE because it's under JRW.

@JapanCustomTours :
Thank you very much, and yup, exactly like that.

Ah, if you’re activating your pass and going to Osaka the same day your flight arrives, you don’t have much choice but to use the Haneda Travel Service Center. At that time of day, hopefully it won’t be quite so busy as it sometimes gets later in the day.

Yes, i hope so too. We are a group of 4, so i expect it'll take some time to fill in forms, exchange pass, reserve seats, and, if possible, buying Welcome Suicas.

So you are going on your arrival date from Tokyo to Osaka passing through Kanazawa to save a bit of money? This seems to be an extremely tiring approach. There are faster ways to get from Tokyo to Osak (Tokaido Shinkansen through Nagoya) or even flying, ideal if you can buy it as part of your international trip.